Arner Wins Grant for Project on Working-Class Women in the Professoriate

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Lynn Arner, an Associate Professor of English at Brock University and a WCSA member, won a multi-year grant for her project “Working-Class Women in the Professoriate,” a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This project involves conducting an extensive survey of English professors in Canada and the U.S., a survey designed to uncover the ways in which working-class female academics negotiate a different terrain in the profession than their working-class male counterparts and than middle-class colleagues, male or female. One of the goals of the survey is to document tracking in hiring patterns in the professoriate, tracking according to gender, class, and institutional pedigree. Lynn plans to publish her survey results in a pair of articles and will also use the survey material in the book she is currently writing on gender and class in the professoriate.

Democracy in Chains

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Nancy MacLean, William Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and former president of the Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA), has published a new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.

 

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“This book is mesmerizing. Rarely have I encountered a work that speaks to such significant issues, with evidence rooted in conclusive new sources. In clear prose, MacLean reveals how a public once committed to social responsibility and egalitarian values became persuaded that only an unregulated free market could protect ‘liberty’ and ‘choice.’ Because of this, our once cherished democracy is now subject to attack. Everyone who wants to understand today’s confrontational politics should read this important book, now.”
—Alice Kessler-Harris, author of In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America

“It’s happening: the subversion of our democratic system from within. How did the political Right do it? Nancy MacLean tells the long-overlooked story of the political economist who developed the playbook for the Koch brothers. James McGill Buchanan merged states rights’ thinking with free market principles and helped to fashion the inherently elitist ideology of today’s Republican Party. Professor MacLean’s meticulous research and shrewd insights make this a must-read for all who believe in government ‘by the people.’”
—Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Conference Day Two, Thursday 6/1

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The day began with plenary speaker Josh Pacewicz (Sociology, Brown University) who spoke on Rust Belt Populism during the 2008 and 2012 elections and continued with a discussion by Michael Zweig and Sherry Linkon on working-class voters and the Trump election.  The day ended with a Presidential Plenary led by past-presidents Christie Launius and Tim Strangleman, president-elect Terry Easton, and current president Michele Fazio.

Josh Pacewicz on “Trumpism Before Trump”
“Liberal Arts Defenders”
Cory Halaa on Organizing the Midwest
President-Elect Terry Easton
Michael Zweig on Working-Class Voters
Marc DiPaolo, filmmaker
Film screening of “Exit Zero” – winner of the 2016 Studs Sterkel Award
Sherry Linkon on media representations of the Working Class since the Trump Election
Preparing for the Presidential Plenary Panel
Mara Fridell talking about Labor History in the Midwest